Is there life on Mars?

Once upon a time, there was a little broadcasting company. We’ll call them the BBC, since that’s their name. And the BBC came up with a show called Life on Mars. The premise was simple: Sam Tyler, a police detective, gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1972. He has no idea whether he’s in a coma, dead, dreaming, or something in between.

Life on Mars is a show I put off watching for a long time. Friends of mine loved it, but as much as I love British culture and my heart belongs across the Atlantic, the fact remains that I don’t know much about the 1970s in Britain. I was afraid it would be culture shock, too much for me to handle. For that reason, and basically that reason alone, I put off watching it until this summer.

I wish I could say the impetus for watching this show was something other than it is, but the facts are these: David E. Kelley decided he wanted to make an American version of Life on Mars. This is not the first time a BBC concept has been corrupted for American audiences. The Office, BBC style, was a one-season romp through office life, a parody and satire of reality. It is a four-season top-billed show in the U.S. When I heard that this beloved show was going to be aired on ABC, I decided I had to see the original before I dove into the classic, a bit like not being able to appreciate The Dukes of Hazard movie unless you’ve seen the original series.

I watched four or five episodes of the first series before I realized I could find the pilot of Life on Mars (U.S.) online. I know this is technically illegal, but so is playing a CD in the car when your friend who does not own that CD is listening to it. (Copyright law is fun!) So I decided hey, why not give it a look?

Big mistake.

Everything—and I mean everything—is a bastardization of the original. It’s not even set in 1972! It’s late-seventies L.A., which basically makes it a horrible homage to 1970s cop shows in the U.S. which, I’m sorry, is not the same as 1970s cop shows in Britain. Not at all. And that aside, they take the best parts of the show away and turn it into a parody of the original. Gene Hunt, the British equivalent of a captain, is an alcoholic, homophobic, angry racist with a predilection towards hardcore sexism and a superiority complex. He is all but castrated by Colm Meaney, an actor who I loved as Miles O'Brien but, let's face it, doesn't translate well from meandering starship crew to hard-drinking, hard-smoking detective. The original series focused a lot more on the politics of the police department, a luxury that the show can take because BBC series generally run a true hour (no forty-four minutes of glory like in the U.S.); the U.S. version instead spends its time setting up sexual tension for Sam Tyler.

Which is my biggest issue with the American Life on Mars, if I'm honest. In the original, Annie--the female cop, the main love interest, the "girl"--is a complex, really well thought-out character. She's completely part of the zeitgeist that is the 1970s in Britain's police force; she's relegated to menial labor when she could be part of the team because female police constables were not trusted or treated the same way as men. They call her a "plunk" the whole way through, but Annie still manages to have... I'm not sure I'd call it innocence, but there's a sweetness in her demeanor. She's not the hard-nosed anything, because that wasn't the time period.

Annie in the the American version is the Tough Chick Cop.

She's ballsy. She's brash. She's all guts and glory, swagger and sex. She's the victim of sexual harassment, maybe, to an extent, but she seems to like it. Instead of being embarrassed in the first episode, when Sam sidles up to her and makes her the "victim" in a case he's profiling (something new to the cops in the BBC version, but strangely, not the American one), she holds her own. No hint of being bothered by the hooting and hollering she gets from the other guys. She could just as easily be placed in a modern crime series--I think, for some reason, of Charlie Crews's partner from the NBC series Life as I say this--and fit in just fine, other than the slang.

It was forty-four minutes of just truly off-putting television.

I'm not saying that it's not possible to turn it around. Well, actually, I am. The concept loses so much in the translation that it's not worth the effort. The BBC's version of Life on Mars really seems to hook into the issues and tribulations of the time period; ABC's version feels almost like an homage, with the snappiest cars and outfits, the quirky chick detective, the glamour of early L.A. I don't feel it. The atmosphere doesn't allow you to suspend your disbelief. You're still tuned in to the modern times, and what you do see of those "glory days" belong more in an SNL skit than a whole series.

I'm not sure how it's going to go over when it premieres. I'll watch; I'll watch anything these days. But it's on late enough on Thursdays that I'm not sure I'll bother making it a regular event. There is no Sam Tyler but the original, no Gene Hunt but the original, and besides, I already know the whole plot, start to finish.

You can't really improve on something that's already tight, well-written, and atmospheric, anyway.

J.J. Jareau and the case of the magical boyfriend from N'awlins.

In the last few years, as shows I loved have come, gone, and jump the shark, I've started investigating running series that I'd never picked up when they started. One such show is Criminal Minds, which Lianne recommended to me because I'm a sucker for a.) a good crime drama, b.) strong characters, c.) some psychological intregue, and d.) pretty boys. I watched the first two seasons in less than a week, all-told, and devoured the first half of the third season over my Christmas break. It was instant and nearly obsessive love.

Aside from the cases, though, I really felt drawn to the cast of characters. Even in their weakest moments, every one of them felt fleshed out and developed, from Elle (who I was glad to see go, and frankly, I always think a mark of a strong character is being able to hate them), to Spencer, to Hotch, Garcia, Morgan, Emily, and even Gideon. In a lot of ways, though, J.J.'s development was my favorite, mostly because of its subtlety. I spent half of the first season thinking that she was, to put it bluntly, a pretty blonde who served next to no purpose in the show. As time wore on, however, she was given clever slivers of personal development that slipped in almost unnoticed. By season three, I really liked J.J. and how she fit into the team.

And then, we had the writer's strike.

Now, this is not another instance of me raging against the WGA and talking about how the strike simultaneously saved and ruined television. That would be petty. However, while the strike was on-going, A.J. Cook--who plays J.J. on Criminal Minds--announced that she and her husband were pregnant. If the strike hadn't occured, the pregnancy might have been able to keep out of the show, because they wouldn't have been filming so late into the spring or starting to film the next season as early (that is, during the first few summer months). The show was clearly at an impasse: write Cook's pregnancy into the scripts, or have her spend half of season four hiding behind file cabients, desks, bags, coats, and other various "baby blocking" equipment (a la Mariska Hargitay).

They decided to write the pregnancy in.

I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about writing in the pregnancy. Part of me thought it would be an excellent chance for development and evolution in the character, but let's face it: the rest of me was cringing. There's always the risk in giving a character--any character--an in-show pregnancy that it will come off as artificial and lame. Truthfully, and especially in shows that spend as much time on cases as Criminal Minds and its ilk, there's a fine line between satisifying character development and overwrought melodrama (a la Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).

When the post-strike episodes began to air, then, I spent my time waiting for a reference to, if not the pregnancy, a boyfriend. Or, if not a boyfriend, some sort of tryst or affair. An interest in artificial insemination. An act of the Holy Spirit. Anything, really, to set off the pregnancy plot. I figured that, with seven episodes before the season finale, there would be some opportunity to set up J.J.'s coming bundle-of-joy properly.

The fourth episode in, Detective Will LaMontagne (first featured in a second season episode) appeared, quite literally, out of the blue to help the BAU and the Miami-Dade Police Department work on a case. This was all well and good. What wasn't? The sudden revelation that he and J.J.--who'd had some chemistry when they'd first worked together, yes--were entangled in a secret love affair that had started when they first met and now, a year later, was still going on.

What?

There was never any indication this was happening. To watch Will and J.J. in the first episode where they met was to watch the slow build-up of flirtacious fun, to this I will admit. But the episode was more than a year gone and without so much as one hint that J.J. was going to New Orleans literally every weekend. At the end of the episode, the other characters congratulated themselves for having had the relationship figured out from day one, but clearly their profiling powers are in the "Superman" range, because no viewer had a clue. And yes, I realize that there are "offscreen" moments that these characters clearly have with one another, but if they were going to drop this bomb, what about sort of pushing it towards the audience?

The next few episodes, though, were worse. From discovering the relationship between Will and J.J. to the season finale, where someone is probably dead (there was an exploding SUV, for pete's sake), J.J. shifts from a strong, capable woman to someone's wishy-washy girlfriend. She wants Will, then she doesn't. She wants to be with him, then she wants to break up with him. She wants to tell her colleagues about her pregnancy, then she doesn't. She wants to marry Will, but she doesn't, but she does only if he'll quit his job, but she doesn't want to quit hers, but she's torn between going into the field while pregnant and chasing down a bad guy to going back to the hotel and making sweet love to Will... You get the idea.

I'm all for character development. I don't want any character to stay stagnant, because that is simply bad writing. Even some of the baddies in Criminal Minds show remarkable, surprising amounts of growth. But for J.J., it's like a switch was flipped from "off" to "on" within ten seconds, and we lost her.

There's a moment where she and Will are arguing. I don't remember the full body of the argument, or exactly what is said, but J.J. suddenly throws what is basically an ultimatum at Will: give up your badge if you're serious about me and the baby. She does it in part because Will thinks she shouldn't be diving face-first into streets filled with a killer gang, but it just goes to show how absolutely self-centered and ruined J.J. has become. She won't give up her own job and believes she shouldn't have to, but this man she supposedly loves does. J.J., who calls these people she works with her family, who has literally killed for them, turns into a petty high school girl: "I don't wanna unless you will! So there!"

It's just sad.

At the end of the season finale, an SUV explodes, and we know it has to belong to one of the cast members. All of them except Hotch is in one of the black monstrosities. Recently, a promo pictures of Hotch standing over J.J., who is lying prone on the street, was released. I know it sounds awful, but I hope it was her.

It's the only way to save her character and, maybe with it, that entire storyline on the show.

For triteness and for worse.

I know I have been sorely remiss in updating this blog, which you may all now feel free to hate me for. Wish death upon me, if you're really feeling overzealous, but the facts are these: the summer is a media black hole, and while I have a list of topics to talk about, none of them are as interesting to me as the slow and terrible death knell of a comic strip that has become an institution: For Better or For Worse.

I can't remember when I started reading FBoFW because I must have been a child. The comics were always my favorite part of the newspaper, and I remember events (such as April's birth) that took place in the very early 90s, so I must have been reading the comic since I was seven or eight years old. It's the story of a middle-class Canadian couple, Elly and John, who are blessed with three children: Michael, the oldest, an aspiring writer with a creative (if sometimes also illogical) mind; Elizabeth, the middle child, who goes off to the northern parts of Ontario to become a teacher in a small native community; and April, the accidental youngest who is born when Elizabeth is in late elementary school and is a budding musician with an interest in veterinary medicine.

Elizabeth's official birthdate makes her two or three years older than I, so I think I've always considered her the character I'm most like in the strip, my Canadian kindred spirit. She was finishing her education as a teacher as I was starting it, and when she left home to teach "up North", it was a beautiful day for FBoFW. For once in the history of the strip, it broke the middle class norms of going to high school, college, getting married, and popping out children with in a half-hour drive of your family. Michael was already married, a budding writer and mildly successful freelance journalist, and while he wasn't exactly making the big bucks, he and his wife were happy. April was starting a band and in her first relationship, the sort of happy-go-lucky kid we've come to expect as the youngest in a family (like Lily in long-gone sitcom Step by Step, or any other late-added baby to a series).

But a few years ago, as Lynn Patterson started planning her retirement, the plots suddenly shifted.

Elly retired.

Michael's apartment burned down and he and his family moved in with his parents.

Elizabeth quit her job up North after being assaulted at her summer job and decided to come home.

Grandpa Jim had another stroke.

April befriended a student with a disability.

A neighbor put a house up for sale that John and Elly wanted to buy.

Michael got a book deal out of the absolute blue.

Elizabeth hooked back up with an old boyfriend.

April decided that her dreams of being in a band as a professional were unrealistic.

Michael and his wife bought the homestead from his parents to live in with their two kids.

I am tempted to just say "et cetera" here, because trust me, all the other plots are just as bad.

On Monday, the strip goes into a time freeze in which Patterson's assistant artists (she, herself, has a disease and cannot really draw any longer) will integrate new material in her old, very rudimentary style into old storylines, giving more history of characters she never before fleshed out (and committing the creative sin of a retroactive continuity--that is, changing the history of a character whose life story is already established--for others). Over the last two weeks, Elizabeth has married her high-school boyfriend and gone to see her grandfather, suffering after a heart attack, in the hospital immediately after the ceremony. No, this is not something I imagined during a fever dream. This is the actual storyline I had to suffer through over the last few weeks.

This strip has been a mainstay of the comic pages for something like thirty years now, but as it wraps up and goes on to the great comic page in the sky, I have to ask: why is this strip so beloved? It's a white family with primarily white friends. It's a middle-class family with no lower-class struggles, unless you count Mike and Deanna's early financial troubles (which always had a certain lack of urgency about them, like we were just waiting for his parents to sweep in and set them right). Mike and Elizabeth both are reunited with and marry their high school sweethearts. April is back together with her creep boyfriend as far as any of us know, and who knows what will happen to them as their lives continue on. There is no real diversity, no real adversity, no real meat to so many of the plots. It's all circumstantial: if it's time for a heart-warming moment, well, someone has a crisis; if it's time for a controversial plot, well, someone knows a gay or a rapist or a girl who's been accused of sleeping around.

As a child, it was easy to point at the page and go, "I love these characters." Why? Because they were as deep as a nine or ten or fifteen year old expects them to be, sort of like wading into a warm kiddie pool. As an adult, I sympathized with and encouraged Elizabeth because it felt like swimming slowly into the deep end for the first time; she was far away from home and her feet weren't brushing the bottom of the pool any longer. There was a real chance of drowning.

But in the end of the series, it's less a deep end and more just losing our balance. Whoops, we slipped, and our head almost went under, but now our feet are planted again and we're able to rub the water out of our eyes. It's like so many other series finales, warm and fuzzy but completely without real substance. Nothing is resolved, and in resolving nothing, we realize with crystal-clear accuracy that there was never anything to resolve. All the hard moments, all the struggles, they were all incidental and just beyond the core.

I like the idea of life and history coming full circle. The concept has always interested me. But I guess in these final moments of For Better or For Worse, what I'd really like to see is April standing in the rain in a graveyard, umbrella as black as her dress, watching one or both of her parents be buried while Mike and Elizabeth stand with her. Elizabeth is still part of her community in the North, and Mike still a struggling writer who perhaps is in his third edit with a publisher, and as the rain pours down, there's no final pun or stupid sentimentality, just the siblings saying goodbye and walking away. Elizabeth can go to her constable Paul Wright, the one male character worth his salt (and actually getting points for acting like a real-life man); Michael can go to his wife and their children before heading back to the apartment; and maybe April is single, working her way through a music career even though it means a lot of singing in bars. But it's something more than what we've gotten.

And apparently, more than we're allowed to want for, too.